Wofford v. Clinton Cotton Mills

• Decision Date: 07 October 1905
• Citation: 51 S.E. 918,72 S.C. 346
• Parties: WOFFORD v. CLINTON COTTON MILLS.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

51 S.E. 918

72 S.C. 346

WOFFORD v. CLINTON COTTON MILLS.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

October 7, 1905

Appeal fro Common Pleas Circuit Court of Laurens County; Ellis G Graydon, Judge.

Action by J. M. Wofford against the Clinton Cotton Mills. Judgment for plaintiff. Defendant appeals. Reversed.

F. P McGowan and W. R. Richey, for appellant. Simpson & Cooper for respondent.

WOODS J.

The plaintiff, an employé of the defendant cotton mill, recovered a verdict of $200 for the loss of his hand while attending a speeder frame in the mill. The important question is whether the motion for nonsuit, which was refused by the circuit court, should have been granted, on the ground that the plaintiff assumed the risk of the character of the machine and of the work in which he was engaged when the accident occurred. The case rested on these facts. The plaintiff was required to clean the floor under the machine with a cloth and in performing this duty his hand was caught and crushed by the cogwheel that ran the speeder. The speeder was "a late improved machine," made by the Providence Machine Company. The cogs were covered on top, but the cover did not extend to the floor; and hence the cogs under the machine, which were about 15 inches above the floor, were not protected. It was possible, and would have been safer, to cover the cogs at the bottom as well as the top, and similar machines in two other mills mentioned by the witnesses had the cogs so protected. The plaintiff had never been told of the danger of his employment, and he testified: "I thought it was cased up sufficiently to keep from getting caught. *** I knew it [the casing] didn't come to the floor, but I didn't think it was dangerous to run my hand under there." The plaintiff, who was 25 years old and has been working in the mill two years, saw the machine put up, and every Saturday after the mill stopped it was his duty and habit to take off the cover and clean the cogs. As a man of ordinary intelligence--and ordinary intelligence must be imputed to him in the absence of proof of disability--he was, therefore, necessarily familiar with the structure of the machine, and could not have failed to know that in using a cloth with his hand to clean a floor 15 inches below a revolving cogwheel there was peril of having his hand caught and injured. The case is therefore one where the servant complaining of injury had knowledge, not only of the nature of the appliance, but the danger to which its use subjected him.

1. It is not the duty of the servant to ascertain whether the machinery is reasonably safe, but when it affirmatively appears he did actually know of the features of the machine which he alleged constituted defects, and knew also the danger which grew out of them and assumed the risk, he cannot recover. Whether the servant assumed the risk, as has been often decided, is ordinarily a question to be determined by the jury under all the circumstances of the case. Bussey v. Railway Co., 52 S.C. 438, 30 S.E. 477; Lasure v. Graniteville Mfg. Co., 18 S.C. 275; Farley v. Veneer Co., 51 S.C. 222, 28 S.E. 198. He is not chargeable with inspection or exercise of care in discovering defects; that being the master's duty. Wood v. Victor Mfg.

Co., 66 S.C. 487, 45 S.E. 81. Even where he has knowledge of the defect and the danger, it is for the jury to say whether he is chargeable with the risk, if he continues in the employment in order to meet an extraordinary emergency due to defective appliances furnished by the master, as in Barksdale v. Railway Co., 66 S. C., 208, 44 S.E 743, or the servant continues the work relying upon the master's assurance of safety, his knowledge being presumably superior, as in Mew v. Railway Co., 55 S.C. 100, 32 S.E. 828, and Keys v. Winnsboro Granite Co., 72 S.C. 97, 51 S.E. 549, or works under the coercion of legal penalties. 1 Labatt on Master & Servant, § 289, subd. "d." None of these grounds of excuse appear in this case, nor is there any evidence of disability or lack of experience or ordinary intelligence. The risk was obvious, and could not fail to be comprehended by a person of meager, not to say ordinary, understanding. The evidence admits...